


They'll always be wrong.

by Tealot



Category: The Boondock Saints RPF, The Walking Dead RPF, norman reedus rpf
Genre: Alcohol, Emotional Hurt, Fans, Loneliness, Norman Reedus - Freeform, Other, RPF, Sadness, Self recrimination, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-21
Updated: 2015-10-21
Packaged: 2018-04-27 10:19:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5044567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tealot/pseuds/Tealot
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dark thoughts over old love letters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	They'll always be wrong.

**Author's Note:**

> Little one shot inspired by a late night conversation.
> 
> Completely made up, of course.

He sat staring into amber depths, whiskey swirling against water in the glass, wondering how different things might have...could have...been.

Disconnected, now. Adrift.  
His emotional barometer not so much shifted as taken and thrown, internal weather forced in a blink from soft and warm to harsh and cold, bitter and biting.

His eyes flickered from the glass..and right now that glass was really his only comfort and he laughed a little as it passed through his mind that he was lonely. A million people professing undying love, tracking his every move, his every blink....but fuck 'em, whiskey didn't throw rocks through your windows...didn't take the things you loved in the name of adoration...flickered onto the pile of letters and pictures that had arrived that day in the mail.

Not fan mail, not art...not these.

These were old. His. He'd sent them. Years ago, more than a decade, some of them. 

To her. Some before the storm, some before she'd jettisoned him from her life for good, some after. 

Who'd had them? Kept them? Not her...though obviously she hadn't thrown them away or they wouldn't be in front of him now, but she certainly hadn't sent them. She'd been gone for years. In fact...

He drained the glass, refilled it, watched liquor drops spatter down onto old paper wincing a little as one landed on her picture. Her face.

He brushed it off with a thumb, picked it up, wishing he could look at these things and smile in remembrence, instead feeling the sting of tears behind his eyes.

He'd never reach that point, not with her. If he hadn't by now it was a lost cause.

He let it fall back into the pile, glanced at the tablet glowing on the table...a bitter laugh escaping him as he took in what he'd last been looking at.

Some blog....a battallion of people discussing his love life. 

What a joke that was, and if they only knew how off the mark they all were.  
Not that he'd bother to clear anything up for them. It was none of their business, and where once he might have been inclined to offer something, now he didn't care. Not to put too fine a point on it, now he didn't give a sweet fuck. Let them all think what they wanted. 

"Creepin you're name again?"

The voice startled him momentarily...he'd forgotten he wasn't the only one here...and an expression of irritation crossed his features.  
Creeping his name. Even now, even here, even HIM...criticized for it and none of them knew why he did it.  
It wasn't vanity.  
At first it had been curiosity. What were people saying? Were they saying anything at all? Did they want to know anything? Did they want to talk to him? He'd talk to them........he'd talked to them!  
Now? Now he just wanted to know what direction they'd be coming from next.  
Needed to know their plan of attack.  
Which way to duck and cover.  
"Shut up."  
"Nice."  
"Go do something."  
"I am. You're gonna get sick if you keep poundin it like that."  
Snorting a little, derisive in the face of fact, he drained the glass in a gulp, refilled it, eyes defiant, knowing even as he did it that his maturity level had just dropped to that of junior high, not much caring, heard the disgusted little huff from across the room.  
"Don't say I didn't warn you."  
"Wouldn't fucking dream of it."  
Dismissing him, expecting him to leave, he reached for the picture again, fought it into focus...tears or booze blurring it and he didn't know or care which...startled once more as it was plucked from his fingers.

"Who is she?"

"Nobody."

"Because you make a habit of drinking yourself stupid and crying over nobody?"

"Go DO something."

"I am. Now come on, who is she?"

"She's nobody. Not anymore. She died a long time ago."

"Oh."

The tone across from him dropped, went soft...sympathetic. 

"I'm sorry, I didn't know. Was she your girlfriend?"

He had to laugh at that.

"Fuck no."  
"Yeah, I didn't really think so. She doesn't much look your type."  
He laughed again, no humor in it.  
"My type....it was her who wouldn't even consider it. I'd be with her now if...y'know, she might even still be alive if she'd given me a chance."  
"Well there's a thought directly out of a whiskey bottle. "  
"Oh fuck off."  
"Come on, why'd she say no? The whole Daryl Dixon thing too much for her?"  
"No, she never saw any of that. Any of this. Wouldn't have mattered."  
He shook himself, gathered up the letters, the photos, stuffed them back into the mailer they'd come in.  
"Go on, go find something else to do and leave me be."  
"Who sent them?"  
"I don't know."  
"What's with the letters?"  
"Will you go?!"  
"No, what's with the letters, let's see."  
"No."  
His eyes went dark..tone fell to match..and the argument stopped. Enough years and anyone would know when to stop pushing and thank god for that.  
"Sorry. You really want me to leave you alone?"  
"Yeah, I really do."  
"Alright. I'm not going anywhere though so let me know if you change your mind."  
"I don't need a babysitter."  
"Like hell."  
He dropped his eyes, looked away...heard him get up and move, feet moving down the stairs, felt a stab of guilt.

This wasn't the way the night should have gone.  
And what he was doing..it wasn't fair.  
Well, fuck it. It didn't matter what he did or didn't do, there was someone out there it wasn't fair to and when, exactly, did HE come into the picture? When, precisely, did he get to do what was fair for HIM?  
Of course this might not be it.  
He forced down the last of the whiskey, wincing a little as his throat tried to close, knowing it was only a matter of time before the spins set in and it all came back up.  
Fuck it, though. That'd worked...once.  
Shove everything that made him sad, everything that hurt..down into some deep pit of himself, shove it there and hold it until it made his insides feel shredded and then vomit it out.  
It bothered other people...bothered him too if he was honest with himself because there wasn't much in the world he hated more than puking but it'd worked.  
And then she'd come along and told him he was foolish.  
Told him he was crazy.  
Not crazy but CRAZY. Insane. Forced a self reckoning he'd never much wanted to have.  
She'd been right and he wasn't much saner now, only better managed. Biggest reason she'd refused him.  
Too crazy.  
Too many issues.  
Too high maintenance.  
Not really.  
Convenient excuses he told himself when the fact of the matter was she just hadn't been on the same page he was.  
She'd loved him.  
He'd been in love with her.  
Not the same thing and there wasn't anything that he...or anybody else....ever could have done to change that. Stone sanity wouldn't have changed it. It wasn't about anything tangible, or quantifiable.  
It was just love, in it's many variables, and while she'd had it, it hadn't been the same as his, and eventually she'd disconnected completely.  
There'd been too many letters...and here they all were, staring him in the face...or had been before he'd stuffed them back into that fucking envelope.  
Too many phone calls, until she'd changed her number.  
Too many unexpected visits, until she'd moved and not told him the new address.  
Yet she'd kept the letters. Given them to someone, or someone had taken them.  
That was probably it. After she'd died someone had gone through her stuff and taken them.  
Who? He didn't know.  
But now here they were. Staring him in the face again.  
All these years later and at exactly the wrong time.  
Already so adrift, so lost...already in free fall, why would anyone do this to him? What could they possibly hope to accomplish?  
He was hiding from strangers already, now he had to find some way to hide from his own past.  
Mean, that was what it was. Plain fucking mean.  
And fuck....it was coming now, the end of this night.  
He didn't feel sick..not yet...but it was right there, threatening.  
If he didn't get up and move now he'd end up breaking his neck trying to get down the stairs when it went critical.  
Hell, he might not make it down them now, because God knew, he hadn't been able to feel his face for hours.  
He had to get up.  
So thinking, the world blinked out and he didn't notice...  
Blinked back in with no bridge and he was curled on the floor, staring into slimey water, sweat and tears running into his face while his stomach wrenched and his throat turned inside out and why in fuck did he do this to himself?  
Least he'd made it to the bathroom, there was that.  
He wasn't alone....there was a hand on his forehead, a hand on his back..but the realization was only passing curious. His mind was full of words, full of letters, and he read them again behind his eyelids while the liquor came back up and whoever this was thought they were taking care of him.  
He flashed back, briefly, to that website, those discussions, those fights about who he loved and who he didn't, bringing another ugly laugh.  
If they only knew who wrong they had it.  
It was never about who he loved, who he'd keep. It never had been.  
It was always about who'd loved him, who'd let him stay.  
It always had been.  
It always would be.


End file.
